Category Archives: theory of

Putting the seal on it: Applied linguistics is a discipline of design

I was heartened by a comment of one of the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript of my new book, A Theory of Applied Linguistics: Imagining and Disclosing the Meaning of Design (2024; Springer). It reads:

The strength of this work lies in its … rich and perceptive exemplifications and references spanning over fifty years.

So, we have examples to illustrate the point, and experience that acknowledges history.

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Albert Weideman presenting at Ghent University

How hot is ‘hot’? How practical can theory be?

When Kees de Bot asked a few hundred applied linguists in 2015 whether they needed to have a theory of the field, he found that they thought they did not (De Bot, K. 2015. A history of applied linguistics: From 1980 to the present. London: Routledge). Are they missing something?

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